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45 year-old Shane found himself grateful to 30 year-old Shane for putting in the effort to learn Russian well enough to be conversant, even if he had never quite made it to fluency. Once he had made up his mind to really make it happen, he subscribed to a better learning app on his phone and spent most of his downtime on trips studying. Once he had made some real progress on that, he started baking a point of being seatmates with one of the Russian guys on the team so that he could practice with a real person. The true test that he was elated to pass was when he finally understood much of what Ilya was saying when he was talking to himself in his native language.
When Shane had interrupted Ilya’s muttered monologue to rebut something self-critical that I Ilya had said, his partner had turned to look at him with utter shock on his face.
“You really learned?” Ilya asked, then wrapped his arms around Shane after Shane nodded.
Fifteen years later, Shane would have been an outsider in his own home if he were able to speak and understand Russian fairly well. Aside from Ilya, there was their son Viktor, who they had adopted more than ten years earlier. He was nearly grown now, and Shane often found himself thinking that if Vik had taken his hockey seriously he’d be off in another province playing Juniors.
But Vik had never wanted to put in the work necessary for that to happen. After what Vik had been through in the Russian orphanage where he spent his early years, neither Shane nor Ilya had ever had the heart to be hard on him.
Ilya had confessed to Shane one night, near tears, how grateful he was that his son could be soft and Canadian in a way that Ilya himself had never been able to be.
In just the last couple of years, they had expanded their household to also include Ilya’s niece Natalie. Very soon after turning 18 and receiving the money Ilya had set aside for her, she had spent some of that money on a plane ticket to Canada. There had never been any question, from the moment they opened their front door to see her on the porch with her suitcase, that they would do anything other than welcome her into their home. She eventually told Ilya that she’d had to give some of her money to her father to get him to release her own passport and birth certificate to her. Ilya had fumed but declared that it would be the absolute last money Alexei would ever get from them.
Ilya and the Hollanders helped Natalia to get legal status in Canada and then helped her get enrolled at a culinary school, where she hoped to get her degree before one day opening a Russian restaurant or perhaps a bakery. She would have two uncles eager to invest in whatever project she chose to pursue.
She once soon after she arrived, she and Ilya had taken to spending weekend days working on cooking projects, often working to recreate some dish Ilya recalled from decades ago. Most of it wasn’t quite to Shane’s preference, but he loved seeing them working together happily in the kitchen, and Vik would be eager for the results as well. Natalia made his son and his partner happy, so as far as Shane was concerned she could stay and be supported by them forever. And if immigration ever tried to push her out of the country, he would hide her in the basement and stand in the doorway himself, using hockey sticks or whatever weapon was required, to keep her safe with them.
One rvening, when Shane was sitting on the living room couch reading, Ilya came and curled up next to him, draped halfway on top of him. Shane opened his arms to pull Ilya closer, and Ilya gave him his most disarming smile. “Nat and I have cooking day tomorrow.”
“Oh yeah? That’s great. What are you making?”
“For you, we will make a nice bowl of borscht with a boiled egg in it. Vegetables and protein? Sounds like meal for Shane Hollander. For the rest of us, we make batch of pierogies.”
“Oh, wow,” Shane replied, petting Ilya’s hair and anther feeling of the springy curls under his fingers. “I know those are a lot of work.”
“Yes, but worth it. I know you do not approve of them, but they are good food, stick to the ribs food.”
Shane sighed softly. “It’s not that I don’t approve. It’s. It not up to me to approve what anyone other than me eats. I just-I mean, it’s dough stuffed with potatoes and then covered in butter.”
Shane said”potatoes” as if the starchy tuber were somehow scandalous, and Ilya chuckled quietly.
Shane continued, “And I’m very happy for them to stick to your ribs.” He patted Ilya’s side and thought about how Ilya had struggled to hold onto healthy weight ever she nice his months of illness so many years back. “I just don’t like the way that kind of food makes me feel. Okay?”
“Okay,” Ilya agreed easily. “I know you always want to feel sharp as blade even when we are retired and old.
“Not that old!” Shane protested. “We’ll be back on the ice this summer, and I don’t want the camp kids skating circles around me. Anyway, I mainly just don’t like how slow all those carbs make me feel mentally. It’s so not a judgment on you or anyone else. I just really want you to enjoy them as well as the time with Nat.”
“Okay. That makes sense, Shane. I am only tiny bit upset that you do not eat our delicious pierogies. Oh! And next weekend Nat is going to bake for me cookies with lekvar, which was always my favorite.”
“What? In the world? Is lekvar?”
“Oh, it’s wonderful. It’s fruit butter made from, ah, plums? No? Yes! Well, prunes.”
“Ew, seriously?”
“Do not put your yuck to my yum, Shane Hollander. Is not nice.”
“I’m sorry! It just sounds very strange.”
“Is sweet and a little bit tart, very thick. Good on toast like jam. Nat is going to make it from scratch and leave me a jar or two to use that way.”
“I knew I liked that girl.” Shane ran his hands over Ilya’s body, loving the warmth and solidity of the man in his arms
“Yes, how my asshole brother was part of making such a person, I do not know.”
The young woman in question walked into the room, saw her uncles cuddling together on the couch, squeaked, and all but ran upstairs. “Shit,” Ilya groaned, lettting his head drop to rest against Shane’s arm. While they knew Antalya was aware of the basic reality of their relationship, they had tried to avoid displays of affection in front of her. As sweet as she was, she had still grown up in the homophonic atmosphere of Putin’s Russia, and they did t want to upset her.
“Nat!” Shane called out after her.
“I’m sorry!” She called down from upstairs. Shane sent her a text, “We’re not upset and hope you are not either, but please come down and talk to us. Please.”
A few minutes later, her light footsteps were coming down the stairs, and she came in and sat down on the floor near where Shane and Ilya sat on the couch.
“Thank you for coming down, Nat. We love you very much, but please understand that we also love each other. I don’t want to shock you with my affection for your uncle but I also don’t want to withhold that affection from him because you may be around. That wouldn’t be a good thing. Okay?”
“Yes, very okay.” She nodded and smiled at them. “I love both of you and want you to be happy and comfortable in your home that you have so kindly taken me into.”
“You’re family,” Shane said. “You belong here as much as anyone. And we also want you to be comfortable here. We know you didn’t grow up thinking it was okay for two men to be
together like this, and we don’t want to push you too fast on that.
“That’s nice of you. And it’s true, I was never taught that this could be a beautiful and loving kind of relationship. My father told me always that you were—“ Nat used the Russian word for cocksucker, and both men winced at the ugly sound of it coming from her.
Ilya sighed heavily. “I know I should not still be able to be disappointed my brother but I am. I’m sorry that he said such a thing to a little girl. But, truly? I am this thing. I do that. What does it matter?”
Nat rearranged her legs on the floor and looked away for a moment. “I guess it doesn’t? I mean, it definitely doesn’t. It has nothing to do with me and was no business of my father’s either. “
“He caught me with another boy when I was just teenager. I thought at first that he was actually going to beat me to death. To get rid of the shame. To get rid of me.”
“Oh god no,” Shane whispered and wrapped his arms more tightly around Ilya’s body, which was so precious to him that to imagine him being scared and hurt that way hurt physically.
“I’m sorry, uncle. Is it terrible to have me here reminding you of him?”
“No, never! It is wonderful having some blood family here. All of us—you, Vik, Shane, Yuna and David—are the loving, supportive family I wished I had after my mother was gone. It just took me many years and a whole other continent to find. I don’t want to let any of you go. Ever.”
“Not going anywhere,” Shane murmured into Ilya’s ear. “Ever.” Ilya pushed his head against Shane’s body like a cat would, and Shane felt something in his chest aching as he clung his partner to him as tightly as he could manage.
“Well, I don’t know how a relationship like yours could ever be a bad thing. You should show your affection in front of me as much as you like. Will not upset me. I only want my beloved uncles to be happy.”
“Thank you, Nat,” Shane said, as he sensed that Ilya was not yet ready to speak. We love you too. I hope one day you meet the right person you, and that you’ll bring him or her home to us so we can love them, too.”
Nat scrunched up her face a little and gave Shane a small smile. “Will be a him, I’m afraid. It seems like it would be nicer to CJ d a best female friend and then fall in love with her. But no, I will have to deal with a man. Too bad for me.”
“ wry good fur you if you ever want to go home some day,” Ilya said, his voice a bit rough and raw.
Nat waved him off. “Eh, home? Who cares? Canada is home now.”
“And you are very welcome,” Shane told her as he petted Ilya’s head some more. This time, when she went upstairs he didn’t call her back down. “Baby? You feeling okay? You want me to go get the good blanket off the bed and we stretch out here?”
Ilya hummed then nodded. “Yes and yes. Feeling okay, but blanket and you and me on couch? Yes, please.”
Shane couldn’t deny his lover warmth and physical affection if that was what he was craving, so he extracted himself from the couch and went upstairs to get Ilya’s favorite blanket. It was the softest fleece Shane had ever felt, in a rich, deep black, so that covering up in it felt like a very comfortable black hole was engulfing them together, forever.
While Ilya got himself a glass of water in the kitchen, Shane stretched out on the couch and pulled the blanket up over his body. When Ilya was ready, he climbed under the blanket and tucked himself up close to Shane to feel his body heat. When he was in just the right spot, Ilya sighed and relaxed, tipping some of his weight back into Shane.
Shane tried to adjust the blanket to properly cover them both, but it was awkward. He remembered that on the first day he had finally returned to find Ilya so ill, they had snuggled on the couch like this, and his father had covered them both with a blanket. He thought about his father, about how it sucked that he wasn’t doing so well these days and about how much he missed the strong, capable man his father had always been. David had terrible arthritis in his knees now, and he couldn’t drive, could barely manage to walk. On weekdays, when Shane and his mother were usually busy with work or their various projects, Ilya was the one who would go pick up David, get him to the car, and take him to appointments or just to lunch. When he had retired from hockey, Ilya had decided to fully retire and dedicate himself to taking care of his family and himself, which Shane fully supported. They had certainly earned enough money for more than their lifetimes.
Shane wrapped his arm around Ilya’s waist and tugged him in closer. “I love you so much. I have no idea what I would do without you.”
“Mmm, yes, love you too very much. Hope you don’t have to find out.”
“Thank you, baby, for everything you do for our family. Especially helping my dad. That’s not your responsibility.”
“He, sure it is. He treated me like a second son, helped keep me alive when I had given up on caring what happened to me. He has been better father to me than the man who raised me.”
Shane sighed. “Oh, baby, you deserve all the love that comes your way.
The front door opened then and Vik walked in. He frowned a little when he saw his fathers together on the couch then walked over and sat down on the end of the couch. He looked soberly at Shane. “Is he okay?”
“Am fine,” Ilya answered for himself.
“Papa, I’m not sure I can trust you when you say that.” Vik patted Ilya’s blanket-covered calf then squeezed lightly.
Shane gave his son an approving smile. “You’re a smart kid, Vik, but he’s right. Everything is fine. We’re just taking the time to rest together so that everything stays fine.”
“Okay. Cool. You guys need me for anything?”
“I think you’re a little too grown for us all to do family snuggle time on the couch, but you’re absolutely welcome to hang out with us here like you are right now. You’re not going to grow out of being part of the family, you know?”
“Yeah, um, thanks,” Vik mumbled.
“No need to thank us, kid.” Shane’s wished his arms were long enough to reach down and make contact with Vik at the end of the couch. “When we adopted you, that meant forever. It always meant forever, just the same as if we’d been able to have a biological child. You get that?”
“Yeah. Yeah. I love you guys, too. I’m glad you’ll always be my dad’s.”
“Damn straight,” Shane said, wishing again he could put a hand on Vik. “Hey, why don’t you stretch out on the couch with your head down at that end and just squeeze your legs in up here by me and Papa?”
“Sure, Dad.” Vik stood up, took off his shoes and jacket, then got himself situated, stretching out in the opposite direction as Ilya. His legs ended up between Shane’s lap and Ilya’s back, so Shane reached under the blanket to give Vik’s ankle a gentle squeeze. “This is great, kid. Good to have you here. You’re usually so busy these days between work and, I guess, girls?”
“Yep. I guess you wouldn’t know much about that.”
“I guess I wouldn’t know too much, though I did date some women before I got myself figured out. Your papa on the other hand was a real international ladies’ man before he and I got serious. You need to know anything about being successful with meeting women, he’s your guy. If you want something a little more marriage and family oriented, reach out to your Uncle Hayden. He was the biggest doofus, I swear, then he met an amazing woman, somehow got her to marry him, and now they’ve been together a very long time. They’ve got two in college now, which is shocking to me.”
“It’s been a while since we’ve seen them.”
“Yeah, too long. I’ve got to see if Hayden and Jackie want to bring the whole circus to our cottage this summer but either way you can still bring someone if you want.”
“I do love the cottage.”
“Yeah, it’s a real gem. It’s the best thing I did with my hockey money other than setting a lot of it aside for, well, now I guess. You know, you can use the cottage to help when you’re taking to women?”
“How am I supposed to do that?”
“Oh, just drop it in real casual. Like, ‘wow, I can’t wait for July to come when my dads and I will go to our lakefront cottage. It’s super nice there. So pretty.’ Then, if the right girl expresses interest, and of course she’s not put off by the whole dads-plural thing, invite her to come with us. Just do try to make sure whoever you bring isn’t going to be a shit about me and your papa.”
“Oh yeah, of course. You know I never brought friends here who were going to be assholes about our family.”
“Yeah. You’ve always been protective of us, even when that wasn’t your job.”
“Sure it was. I mean, you guys always said I was part of the family and part of…of you. So if somebody hated you for being who you are, then they were my enemy by default. I grew up knowing I had to take threats to myself and my people seriously.”
Shane patted Vik’s ankle. “I’m sorry you had to grow up that way in your early years but I really like and love the young man you’ve grown into. So I guess I can’t entirely hate what you went through because that contributed to making you who you are. Same with things that happened to this one here.” Shane rubbed Ilya’s upturned shoulder. “I feel like I could never—I would have broken.”
“Well, good thing you grew up here and had Gramma and Pop for parents. I doubt they even ever put you to bed without dinner.”
Shane laughed quietly. “No, not quite. The opposite, really. I remember one night Mom wouldn’t let me go to bed until I finished my dinner. I get that she was trying to help me bulk up, but I was so tired from school and practice that I was just sitting alone at the table crying into my lasagna.”
“Well, I mean, that wasn’t good for them to do either. I’m sorry, Dad.”
“Aw, it’s okay. I know they meant well. I’m sure that when she finally gave up on me finishing my plate, mom would’ve given me a big hug and a can of ginger ale.”
“I guess that beats a snack across the face and a cup of orange soda that didn’t have any fizz left in it anymore.”
“Yeah. Ew. Sorry we didn’t find you sooner, Vik.”
“Naw, I know you had to be ready. You couldn’t exactly go adopt a kid then both of you fly off to different cities every few days to play hockey. Not unless you wanted someone else to raise me.”
“Well didn’t want that, not at all.”
“I talked about it with Aunt Sveta one time. She said she barely even knew she had a father when she was little, he was around so rarely. I’m not mad that you guys waited.”
“Okay, well, sometimes I am, but that’s my problem not yours.”
“What would you have done differently?”
“Oh, retire sooner. Sometimes I feel like it was stupid and selfish to keep playing g as long as we did. As I did. We didn’t need the money, and we’d both had plenty of glory, cups, all of it. My hip might not ache so much if I’d quit the game sooner.”
“Ooh. Well, I’m glad neither of you ever got hurt really bad. You know, the concussions and all.”
“Well, I had at least one serious one, got it rung pretty good. And I can’t imagine there’s any way Paoa got through a childhood playing hockey and then 20 years playing professionally without getting a solid knock or two.”
“Did he take care of you when you got hurt?”
“Eh, well weren’t like that then. We were still pretty casual. But he came to visit me in the hospital, and I knew by how I felt when he held my hand that I couldn’t keep it casual anymore. I asked him to come to the cottage, and he said no, we couldn’t do that.”
“What? Wow, no. Of course you needed to go there.”
“Well, lucky for me, a man named Scott Hunter got brave, and this one changed his mind. It was a great time, even though Pop saw us kissing, and I had to tell them everything. About me and about us.”
“They were—were they okay with you?”
“Oh, sure, they were great. It was still scary though because you could never really tell with people of their generation. A lot of them were super cool, total allies, but then others were secretly super conservative and awful. I mean, some of them unironically still idolized Ronald Reagan even though he practically murdered a generation of queer men and traumatized the survivors.”
“Fuck. I’m sorry, that’s tough.”
“Well we were the lucky ones. We grew up in a world with legal gay marriage here in Canada and queer people on TV sometimes and HIV as a chronic illness rather than a catastrophic, terminal one.”
“Right, yeah. I wish it could have been treated that way for my mom.”
“Yeah. I’m sorry, honey. You know, when we first discussed adopting a child from Russia, I wondered if it would be possible to suss out a child who was going to grow up to be queer so we could save them from growing up under that repression. When we met you, and they told us how your mother died, that felt like fate to me, like we owed something to the people who came before us and fought for us to be free to have this beautiful life. Now, that’s not the main reason we chose to adopt you. We chose you because of who you are, not because of what your mother suffered. But still, something about that felt right to both of us. We’d both been looking into 30th century queer history, watching movies and whatnot, so while it’s certainly not something we lived through, we still felt like it had touched us.”
“Right, that makes sense. I can imagine you were watching, thinking that could’ve been you if you’d been born 50 years sooner. In Russia, it was never so much the queer men who got it. Mostly just the junkies and the whores, like my mother.”
“Vik, honey, I don’t think it helps anything to use words like that for your mother. You know addiction is a disease. I want you to internalize that for your own sake if nothing else. And she was doing her best, I’m sure. I can only imagine how much she loved you, her baby, and I wish there were some way for me to thank her for bringing you into the world and for protecting you as much as she was able. Because I’m so grateful. Here you are, alive and grown so big and whole and healthy. I’m 100% sure that you are her dreams made manifest.”
Vik was quiet for a moment and dabbed at his eyes with the edge of the blanket. “I don’t even know if she has a grave somewhere.”
“You could go and see some day, if and when you’re ready. Svetlana would help you research and drive you where you’d need to go, be there with you.”
“Oh. That might, might be good one day. Not right now. Are there any other people I should meet if I go over there? Family or friends?”
“You don’t want to meet Ilya’s brother. He’s an entire bag of dicks. We used to have another good friend over there, but he waited too long to get out.” Shane sighed heavily.
“What do you mean?”
“His name was Sasha. He was very close with Ilya when they were teenagers.”
“Oh, like close close?”
“Yeah. I tried to get him to come to Canada to stay with us, claim asylum, live where he’d be safer.”
“That sounds like a pretty good deal.”
“Yeah, I thought so too, but he felt like he was safe enough because he was careful. But eventually he wasn’t quite careful enough. He ended up in prison for being gay. Despite Ilya and I throwing our names around in the international press trying to advocate for his release, he didn’t survive to be free again. It hurt your papa so badly. And me too. I cared for Sasha very much. He was a good friend.”
“Wow, I’m sorry, that’s awful. I guess that’s why you’re working on what you are now?”
“Yes, exactly.” Shane was busy daily, taking lunches and meetings, trying to get the government to allow him to spearhead a campaign to advertise asylum in Canada as an option for queer people internationally who were stuck in countries where being gay was illegal or even in some places seriously dangerous to life and limb. “I want to get them here and help them get settled so they will stay and be safe. I want them to be safe like Sasha should have been safe.”
“That’s a good plan, Dad. I’m really glad you’re working on that.”
“Well, there are still plenty of people who will jump at the chance of having a lunch meeting with Shane Hollander to help me get my foot in the door. I want to do something with that opportunity before they all forget about me.”
“I don’t think you and Papa are too likely to be forgotten. When it comes to 2020s queer history or hockey history or just Canadian history, they’re always going to show Scott Hunter’s kiss on the ice in one frame and then you and Papa kissing on the ice uat your retirement ceremony in the next frame. That’s never going to be truly forgotten. You really did something there.”
“Well. I can only hope it made some kind of difference.”
“I saw a couple of weeks ago that the new center on the New York team came out. Posted a picture with his boyfriend on his socials.”
“What? And I missed that? Damn.” Shane pulled out his phone and started poking at it.
“Just think, he grew up always knowing that superstar hockey players could be gay. He didn’t have to put one big part of himself to the side to chase his sports dreams. You helped make that world, Dad. I’m proud to be your son.”
“Aw, well, it can’t be as much as I’m proud to be your dad. I tell people all the time how smart you are, how good-hearted. How you’re studying education, and you’re going to be a teacher someday. I know people wish I’d just shut up about it, but I really can’t.”
“Aw, Dad,that’s nice of you to say. If I am smart, I don’t know how I ended up that way. From what I’ve learned, the orphanage did basically nothing right in terms of nurturing young minds. I think we were just a bunch of inconveniently needy meat sacks to them, and we could have had potatoes for brains as far as they were concerned.”
“Well, no potato brains on this sofa, at least not until you all demolish a double batch of pierogies. And just so you know, there was never anything inconvenient about your needs. Anybody who thought so didn’t deserve the privilege of being entrusted with your care.”
“Mmm, pierogies. You don’t know what you’re missing, Dad.”
“And I’m okay with that.”
“I get it when you were playing and trying to optimize your performance, but why do you care now?”
“I like to feel sharp, and I like to stay healthy. It’s not a judgement on you or anyone else. It’s not even a judgment on me. I know I’m fine. I just like eating the way I do.”
“Oh, okay. Well, cool. I’ll eat your portion of the pierogies.” Vik patted his somewhat rounded stomach, and Shane didn’t mind seeing that at all Vik hadn’t been such a scrawny kid when they’d taken him home on the plane. They’d flown commercial, of course, coach class, and Vik hadn’t been squished at all, even in the middle seat between two broad-shouldered men. As they flew over the Atlantic, Shane had envied Vik’s ability to move around in his seat, pull his legs up, change position. Shane had just leaned over towards the window to give Vik more room to play with the tablet they had brought for him. To see him now, strong and tall and filled-out, was a joy for Shane and Ilya both. They had accomplished something together, and it had nothing to do with hockey. The young player coming out also felt like something they’d at least facilitated this young f nan could live his life in the light of day without having to look over his shoulder every time he went into a room with his boyfriend. Shane thought he would try to log into one of his old social media accounts to send the player his congratulations and well wishes. He wondered if that would still mean anything when he was five years past retirement.
“So,Dad, you really think Papa is okay?” Some months ago, Shane had the lad Vik the basics of what had happened so many years ago, when Shane had abandoned Ilya, and Ilya had gone to a dark, dangerous place. He’d seen reproach in his son’s eyes, and that had hurt, but Shane still knew he deserved that. Now, Vik knew what he’d have to be careful of if anything should ever happen to take Dad away from Papa. He knew, too, why one of his fathers couldn’t have too much caffeine for fear of “his heart getting mad.”
Ilya had only had one episode with his heart in Vik’s time with them, but unfortunately Vik had been there to see it. They had still been trying to get their boy hooked on hockey, and Ilya had taken him to open ice time at a local rink. Ilya had never admitted to having had any caffeine that would have brought on the atrial fibrillation, but Shane suspected that there had been more than a day spent playing on the ice behind it.
In any case, Shane had been contentedly spending some time alone in the house when he got a text from Ilya with a screenshot from his health app. “Come to rink please.”
Shane had been on the highway before he even knew if he had shoes on. He had run inside the rink building to find his husband and son sitting near the ice. Vik was on Ilya’s lap with Ilya’s arms wrapped loosely around him. Shane had lifted Vik right up into his arms, reassured him that everything would be fine, and sat him down a few seats away before wrapping his arms around Ilya. “What do you think, baby? You need a hospital today?”
“No, I think rest at home will do for me. But Shane? No carrying! None!”
Shane looked closely at his husband z, taking in that he didn’t look ok nearly as bad as he had that day outside of Starbucks. He still had some color left in his face, and he didn’t have a hand clutched to his chest. “Okay. We will take it very slow and carefully walk out together. If you seem at all worse or really in distress, I’m driving us all to the hospital.
Ilya had nodded, and he allowed Shane to take his arm as they headed toward the door to the outside. They moved very slowly, as Ilya barely seemed capable of that level of exertion. When they got to the vet, Shane guided both Ilya and Vik into the back seat. “Hold your Papa’s hand on the way home,” Shane whispered to Vik after putting the boy in his booster seat. “Please?”
Vik had nodded and sweetly reached out for Ilya’s much larger hand. They were still holding hands when Shane parked the car at home, and he was so grateful for their loving little boy. Shane held onto Ilya again for the short trip inside, and Vik trailed behind, almost on their heels. Shane put Ilya onthe couch, and Vik was sweet enough to sit next to him and take his hand again without even being asked. Shane went to the kitchen to get a glass of water for Ilya and contemplated but rejected an anxiety pill for himself, just in case he needed to drive again soon. Back in the living room, he sat down on Vik’s other side, sandwiching the boy between him and Ilya as he wrapped his arm around Ilya’s shoulders. He could feel Ilya shaking very slightly, and he didn’t like it but he didn’t want to bulldoze Ilya’s wishes about going to the hospital. “Hey,baby, talk to me?”
“I think now that you were right to be so angry with Centaurs fur letting me play sick, years ago.”
“Oh, yeah? Why?”
“I as out on ice when this started. It was all I could do to get to the wall for something to hold onto and then to a seat after that. It was very hard, and the ice was not full of large men moving very fast. If that had happened in a game, it would’ve been so much worse. I would have run into someone or someone into me. I would have gone down and not known which way was up. And I would not have had you to hold me.
That hit Shane like a puck to the solar plexus. “I’m so sorry, baby. You should’ve had me always.”
“Is okay. You explained. You’ve been here ever since.”
“Of course I have. Because I love you too much to be away from you.”
Shane had explained to Ilya what had been going on in his head when he just didn’t come see Ilya and wouldn’t even take his calls once his therapist had helped Shane to understand. It had taken a lot of sessions and a lot of willingness on Shane’s part to swim into dark places.
Subconsciously, even though he had put together a reasonable plan for the two of them to publicly become friends, Shane had been terrified that so many trips to see Ilya, so much contact was n general, would wind up outing them. His anxiety had that part of his brain convinced they would both lose their careers so many years too early. The Irina Foundation would collapse, taking the summer hockey camps with it. Ilya would be deported, and Shane would learn months later that he had died violently, hunted, run to ground in the night. Shane himself wouldn’t have the money to do the things he wanted to do to help his parents and would eventually runout of money altogether and have to take up doing TV ads for local car dealerships until he name and face weren’t worth anything anymore. After that, he might as well just join Ilya in death. He would be an object lesson in why nobody should ever come out as gay in professional sports. So, when it had seemed that Shane was being selfish and simply slacking on his relationship with Ilya, in his subconscious he had been fighting for their lives. Understanding this had helped both of them to feel better. Shane had been able to let go of some of the guilt and bitter self-recrimination. Ilya had been reassured that since they had been living together for months with no repercussions, Shane’s anxiety should have settled down somewhat. By that point, they had put their plan together to come out in a joint press conference and then marry the following summer. They would not hide in the darkness forever. They had better things to do with their lives, including finding a child to bring into their loving home.
As the three of them had sat on the couch together, Vik had squished way up into Shane’s lap, then leaned in to whisper in his ear, “Papa okay? Papa sick? I heard you say ‘hospital.’ That’s bad place. Bad place.”
Shane had wrapped the arm that wasn’t around Ilya around Vik to hold him close. “Papa will be okay. The hospital doesn’t have to be so bad. We’ll talk more about this and bedtime. Okay?”
Vik had nodded against Shane’s shoulder then stayed limp as Shane had carefully turned in place on the sofa and slowly moved closer to Ilya do that it was between them, and Shane could hold both of them with both arms all at the same time. That had allowed his own healthy heart to slow down and stop feeding his spiral of anxiety. “How are you feeling now, baby? Any better?”
“Little bit better.” Ilya’s voice had still sounded weak and unsteady, and Shane rubbed as much of his back as he could reach with a child between them. “Okay. We’re going to back away so you can use your watch to test your heart. Will you do that?”
Ilya had immediately clutched at Shane. “No, stay, please stay. This is what my heart needs.””I mean your physical, pumping heart, baby, not your feelings.”
“This is also what I mean. My physical, pumping heart needs to be very warm with both of you very close. We’re going to stay right next to you, very close. I just really need you to test yourself, see if you are still in a-fib or if you are back in sinus rhythm now and maybe slowed down some. Can you do that for me please?”
“Yes, for you I will do this. You can move away, and I promise I will be okay.
“Thank you, baby.” Shane had carefully pivoted to pull himself and Vik away from Ilya’s lap so that Ilya would have room to see his watch to run the test.”
A minute e, Ilya let out a relieved breath. “Is good. See?”
Shane maneuvered himself do that he could read Ilya’s watch and saw that his heart was now in normal, healthy sinus rhythm at a considerably slower pace than it had been earlier. “Oh, good. Thank you, baby. Shane put a hand on Vik’s narrow back. “See. Papa is fine. No need for a hospital.”
“Oh, good!” Vik sounded far more relieved than he thought a nine year-old should, and Shane was looking forward to their bedtime chat yo try to learn more about their boy’s mysterious past.
“Okay, Shane said a little while later, “I guess it’s dinner time. How do you two feel about Mac and cheese?”
“Not hungry,” Ilya had mumbled. Vik shook his head decisively. “No. No getting up for dinner. I want to stay right here.”
“Me too,” llya agreed.
“Okay. Okay. You both really need to eat something before bed even if it’s just a snack later. Do you promise you’ll eat something in a little while?” Both of them nodded their heads solemnly. “So let’s try something new. I’m going to call it a family snuggle.
“I like sound of this,” Ilya said quietly.
“You would, my giant snuggle bunny. Okay, baby. You stretch out first. Leave as much room as you can.” Ilya situated himself along the back of the couch cushions. When he was settled, Shane lay down along the outside of the cushions then tucked Vik in between them. “Hay, can everyone breathe?” 🧘♀️ nice he felt two heads nod, Shane pulled the blanket down onto them all and spread it out as best he could.
“Oh, I like this,” Vik said, and he was lying very still, not squirming around at all.
“Me too,” I Ilya said, and Shane had to reach up to ruffle a hand through his husband’s curls. “Shane, you are protecting us from whole world. “
“That’s what I want to do all the time.”
“Asod now, what I want to do all the time is this—family snuggle. Is best thing. So warm. So nice. Vik, is this okay for you?”
“Yes, Papa. I stay all the time too.”
“What a sweet boy you are,” Ilya said, followed by “We love you so very much,” spoken in Russian.
Shane agreed in Russian with the best accent he could manage, “We love you very much, our good little boy.”
Vik made a small happy sound then sighed. “Just please don’t ever need to go to the hospital, Papa.”
“Will you tell me, little bunny,” Ilya asked, with the pet name in Russian, “why you think hospital is such terrible place?”
“Oh. Mama had to go to the hospital several times. Each time, I would be all on my own even when I was very little. Then she went, and I went with her, and she never got to come home again. Then I got taken to the orphanage.”
“I’m so sorry , Vik. In stcwant you to know that’s never going to happen here. Even if Paoa had to go to the hospital, you would be with me. If for some reason I couldn’t stay with you, you would be with my parents. You met them, remember?”
“They were nice,” Vik said, sounding utterly exhausted.
“They are very, very nice,” Ilya agreed. “They would take the very best care of you until we could have you back with us again.”
“Butwhat if they needed to go to the hospital too?”
“Okay, that’s very unlikely to happen at the same time, but if it did I would call my friend Hayden to come get you. You don’t know him yet. But Hayden is going to be your uncle. He has a very nice wife and a whole bunch of kids, so he would know just how to take care of you. You would not be alone. You would not be taken to an orphanage again. We made a lot of plans before we got you to make sure that you will always be safe and loved.”
“Okay,” Vik said in a tiny voice, not sounding entirely convinced. “I wish Nama could rave made plans like that.”
“Me too,” Shane said, rubbing at what he could reach of Vik’s shoulder. “But I’m guessing that we might ace a lot more resources than your mama had. That’s not her fault, and it doesn’t mean she didn’t love you a lot.”
“What are resources?”
“Okay , so, one kind of resource is people that you can call to help you. Like my parents or Hayden or other friends we have nearby.”
“That makes sense. I don’t think Mama had anyone good and safe that she could call.”
“That’s very sad, but a lot of people don’t have good family or reliable friends to call on. That’s not your mama’s fault.
“Another kind of resource is time. Some people have to work all day or even at night just to keep food in the table and a roof over their heads. Papa and I are very lucky that we don’t have to work anymore unless we want to, so we are very rich in time. We can go to your school events and spend time with you in the evening and on the weekends. And inthe summer, we’ll go away to my cottage, which is on a lake, and we’ll all be together for so long you’ll be sick of us.
“No, I won’t be. But Nama didn’t have time either. She would be at work all the time and then come home so tired and sore and sometimes with a bruise on her face or her arm. But she says she had to work all the time y keep us out of the gutter.”
“Oh no, I wish we could have known and helped your mama.”
“Me too but how would you know us?”
“where did your mama work?” Ilya asked quietly in a tone that made Shane suspect he already knew the answer or had an idea.
“I don’t really know,” Vik answered, shrugging his little shoulders between them. “It was at a house, but I don’t know whose house it was. She pointed it out one time as we were walking past. “There were some rough looking men hanging out smoking on the front porch. Mama gave them a dirty look and kept us walking. 🚶 asked if I could go inside to see, and she got upset. She said,”No, you can never go in there. Never ever. She made me promise,”
“I’m sorry, little bunny. It sounds like your mama did very hard work to try to keep you safe and well. You a at us she got sick?”
“Yes. She got bad colds that would never go away. And weird marks on her skin, like bruises but much worse. I’m be day she couldn’t breathe right and fell down on the sidewalk, so people took her to the hospital, and I went home by myself. I wasn’t big enough to reach any of the food in the cabinets but there was milk in the refrigerator, and I could reach that. She came home after a few days, but after that she just got so much sicker and sicker so fast. Then she was gone forever.”
“Oh, Vik, I’m so sorry you both had to go through that.” Shane had his suspicions about the truth of Vik’s mother’s illness, but he was reasonably sure that Ilya knew even better than he did, and he expected to hear more later.
“Anyway, I guess the biggest kind of resource, the one that den make up for the others, is money. Your papa snd I have been very lucky, though we also worked very hard, and we have so much more money than the three of us will ever need. We will help you have a good start in life, and we will help you until you don’t need us to help anymore. But we’ll always be ready to help again if you need us again.”
“Because you have lots of resources?” Vik asked slowly. “Mostly because we love you but the resources will let us help better.”
“And the resources mean I’ll never have to come home by myself after watching a be of you nearly suffocate on the street, then pull and pull on the fridge door until it opens then sit on the kitchen floor with the jug of milk?”
“No, never. Never under any circumstances. If we left you like that, we could be put in jail. It’s against the law to treat a child that way.”
“Oh! But I would never tell I don’t want either of you to go to jail!”
“Thank you, but it’s not something you’ll ever need to worry about. Also, I want you to know that if an adult, any adult, is mean to you or treats you in a way that makes you unhappy, you need to tell. Tell me. Tell papa. Tell a teacher in school. If the adult who wasn’t kind to you gets in trouble, that’s not your fault. It’s their own fault. Please, please tell us. That goes for us, too. If we do something that hurts your feelings or makes you feel not safe. Please let one of us know. We only want you to be happy and safe, and we can’t fix things if we don’t know about them.
“Okay,” Vik replied in his small voice.
Ilya spoke up then, in Russian that was slow and simple enough for Shane yo catch most of it. “I want to tell you something,little bunny. My mama died too, when I was just a little older than you. I saw her very sick in her way, too. I know it is very hard and puts sadness inside of you.”
Shane hugged both of them closer. “I want you to let that sadness out as much as you can. I was not allowed to cry, not allowed to talk about her. I want you to cry and let us hold you. I want you to talk and let us listen. I don’t want you to carry that sadness inside of you all your life like a bullet lodged in bone. It doesn’t have to be that way.”
“I’m sorry about your mama,” Vik said, and then he was crying, his tears being absorbed by Ilya’s t-shirt and his trembling being absorbed by both of their bodies. Shane put a hand in his hair and rubbed it gently back from his forehead. Ilya slipped a hand around to Vik’s back and rubbed slow circles that Shane could feel against his chest. Eventually, Vik’s crying quieted, and he rested, breathing steadily in the safe, snug little pocket between his fathers. He had never in his short life felt so safe or so comforted or so loved. “I’m thirsty,” he admitted in a whisper, “but I don’t want to get up and have a snack yet.
“It’s okay. We’re not going anywhere yet.”
“Nope,” Ilya agreed as he tugged them both toward the back of the couch.
Shane had to admit that coming home together had been much better than going to the hospital would gave been, even if the hospital would gave helped his anxiety in the short run. He also determined that the family snuggle was going to become a regular thing. He thought that it would help Vik to bond with them and to feel like a part of the family rather than feeling like he existed separately from the Shane&Ilya unit. He also knew it would be excellent for Ilya, who absorbed this kind of physical affection like a sponge left in the desert. He imagined coming home to find his husband and son cuddled on the couch together, both watching TV or reading their own books. It was difficult to imagine anything sweeter than that other than maybe his son one day playing his first game in the MLH if that was what he wanted to do. Shane told himself that he would encourage. And he would guidebifcasked, but he would not push. Neither Shane nor Ilya had felt like they truly had any choice about playing hockey province they had started to show promise in their tween years. Shane had been pushed by his mother’s ambition, Ilya by his father’s avarice, and in the end both of them had sacrificed their youth and their bodies to the great machine of the MLH. Shane didn’t regret it or blame his mother, but he did wonder sometimes how else his life could have gone. In the end, he was very happy with the life he had.
“Okay, I love you both do much that it actually hurts, but I also really have to pee. When I get back down here, I want to find both of you at the kitchen table with waters and yogurts. Is that understood? Both of them made negative sounds but Shane rolled up to stand anyway. He shook Ilya’s shoulder, and once Ilya was looking at him, Shane pointed firm st Vik, made an eating gesture. Then pointed towards the kitchen and raised his eyebrows. When Ilya finally nodded, Shane turned and went upstairs.
When he hit back downstairs, they were both exactly where he wanted them to be. As much as Shane didn’t mind restricting his own diet, he was in no way comfortable with either Ilya or Vik completely skipping meals. They both needed the nutrients to be healthy. He’d tuck them into bed with candy bars in dentist were all they would eat but he was much happier with cupsbb c of blurry yogurt and glasses of water. Shane grabbed a ginger ale and sat down at the table with them
“Do, tomorrow you two go on a school tour, right?”
“Yes.” Ilya nodded. “This will be the closest neighborhood school, so we are hoping it will be good.”
“Their ESL program is highly rated, and the school gets good reviews overall. “
“You think Vik needs this ESL? His English is very good.”
“It is. I just want him to have all of the help and support he needs to succeed in school. If we dump him in a regular class, I’m afraid he’ll struggle too much and not feel like the smart boy he is.”
“Humph. I got dumped in American MLH team and wished good luck. Did not feel like smart boy, especially not when watching Shane Hollander speak fluent French on top of perfect English.”
“Dumped “ is an interesting term for being the #1 draft pick. Also, you were a man and twice his age. I know you were young, god, we both were! But nobody was firing questions at you in English when you were nine years old.
“Not as far as you know.”
“Oh, come on. You don’t want him to have a smoother transition than you were allowed?”
@you are right. I do want that. Vik, I want you to face a good time in school and not feel too stressed about your English. And I want you to remember that you can come home and complain all about it to me in Russian. Smart convince showed me that it feels better to get your thoughts out in your native language. Plus, it makes be feel better to hear it and to converse with you that way. “
“Is that why you guys wentvsllbtgecwaybto Russia to get a kid? I mean, there’s got to be a lot of kids in Canada and America who need parents.
“The language issue was part of but, yes, but more than it just felt right to us to try to find a child from papa’s homeland. And it brought us to you, so it was definitely definitely the right thing for us to do. I believe we’re supposed to be your dads. Nothing else would’ve been as right.
“I love you guys, too,” Vik said around his spoon.
“Thank you. Okay, this has been a very sharing and caring day, and I’m exhausted so I’m going to bed. Vik, do you want to go to bed now or wait for Papa to put you to bed in a little bit?”
“Um, now. “
Shane tells on care if Vik’s trash and dishes then ushered the boy up to his bedroom. They had kept the room simple while they were preparing for their trip to Russia, and then they had let Vik pick out his own bedding and decorations to make it more his own personal room and not so much just some random boy’s room like what they could have assembled with a trip to Walmart before bringing Vik home.
In his room after brushing his teeth, Vik easily accepted a hug and a kiss on the forehead from Shane “I bet Papa will stop in to say goodnight before he goes to bed, so you might not want to go to sleep super super fast tonight. But sleep well, and I’ll see you in the morning. I love you so much. I’m knew I would like having a child in our lives, but I had no idea how much I could love a child. You’re so special,Vik. You just broke my heart wide open, and I’m so glad. If we didn’t have you, I would miss you so much.”
“But thenyou wouldn’t have ever known me?”
“My heart would miss you. I think it missed you before, years ago, and that’s why I wanted to adopt a child in the first place.”
“You’re silly, Dad. And weird. “
“Yeah, I’ve been told that before. I don’t mind being a little weird if it got me the life I have right now. Now, goodnight. I love you Sleep well.”
“You too,” Bik replied as Shane left the room. When Shane was stretched out in his own bed, he reminded himself to follow the advice he’d given to Vik and not fall asleep too fast. Soon enough, he heard footsteps on the stairs and down the hallway turn the bed dipped as Ilya climbed into bed with him, the naked length of him sliding against Shane’s skin. With one arm slung around Ilya’s waist, Shane let himself sink into sleep.
As he drifted, he thought about how he would need to get Vik a phone, at least a basic one, and load it with the numbers of all the people who could be backup caregivers. He didn’t ever want Vik to have to fend for himself again, not for any reason. Of course, neither of them would ever choose to leave him alone, but what if Shane were away and Ilya had a bad heart episode at home? Vik shouldn’t have to deal with that on his own. Shane would have to teach him about 911 as well, but without a lifeline to a trusted adult, Shane didn’t think the boy would ever choose to call and have another parent taken away to the hospital. That could be dangerous for all of them.
As Shane was drifting on these thoughts, Ilya scooted up behind him. .”Shaaane. Shaaaaaney,” he breathed into Shane’s ear.
“Yes, baby?
“His mother? I’m sure she was a prostitute.”
“Yeah? That makes sense,”
“I wondered from when adoption coordinator told us that she died of AIDS. Virus is very common in this kind of woman at home. Is why I would never go to one. Not ever. Butcher when Alexei tried to shame me into it.”
“Oh, right, like you would ever need to pay for sex, Mr. Ladies Man. You’d pay for one drink then take them home and get their panties off.”
“Former ladies man, thank you. You could fill the house with beautiful women now, and I would not touch them. It turns out that all I want is you.”
“Oh, baby.” Shane scooted and rolled over to face Ilya. “Am I—am I depriving you of sex with women?”
Ilya’s chuckle was a soft puff of breath over Shane’s face. “Please deprive me of this to the end of my days. You deprive me of two things. First, miserable loneliness. Second, pussy. I do not want or need either. I am done with both of these things. I had plenty before.”
“Okay. I just don’t want you to suffer for being with me.”
“No, never. Not at all. Just the opposite.”
“Oh good, I’m glad to hear that, baby. You know, I feel so bad for that poor woman.”
“Vik’s mama? Yes, me too. Probably her family was no good so she couldn’t get them to help with Vik.”
“Ugh, you’re right. I wish I could go back to her hospital bed there at the end and tell her we would come and take care of Vik.”
“You want to tell Russian woman that pair of queers from America will take her little boy?”
Shane jabbed Ilya lightly in the ribs. “Don’t make it sound like that. Please, baby? Enough people on the outside will put that onto us. We don’t need to bring it in here ourselves.”
“Yes, darling Shane. You are as always correct.”
“I wasn’t correct when I wanted to take you to the hospital today. You were right; that wasn’t what you really needed.”
“Maybe you will listen to me next time?”
“Yes, maybe. But I did listen to you this time! I didn’t carry you or even try to pick you up.”
“Yes, thank you for that. I could not have taken my son seeing me hauled around like fainted woman.
“Oh, you would have gotten over it, and so would he. I bet you were his hero today, showing off on the ice. How many hockey moms tried to scoop you up?”
“Aw, but we already discussed this. You do not need to worry about any quantity of attractive young mothers. I am only for you.”
Shane sighed and breathed in the warm scent of Ilya’s neck. “As I am for you.”
Down the hallway, Vik struggled for a while to fall asleep all alone in the soft bed. He was so used to crowding in with two or three friends for warmth at night. Here, he was plenty warm all on his own, and he didn’t understand why it was so different here. He thought he could probably get used to it. Especially since they had good food, too. Vik had been pleasantly surprised that the yogurt they gave him was creamy and sweet with lots of jam in it rather than plain, sour and pasty like he’d had before.